Owned since 2022 by US incubator and marketplace SuperOrdinary, Fanfix lets creators offer a subscription for their content, which they post behind a paywall. As with membership platform Patreon, influencers set a subscription fee (the minimum on Fanfix is $5, and the maximum is $50). Special features include a pay-to-message option, and plans are underway to offer personalised videos and livestreaming. Fanfix has over 10 million users, and has so far paid out $11m to its 3,000 creators (TechCrunch, 2023). The company forecasts that this sum is on course to reach $50m by the end of this year.
Whereas influencers on apps like TikTok generate most of their income via brand deals, Fanfix focuses on facilitating earnings from fans paying them directly. An analytics function gives creators access to performance metrics, which can be useful for pitching to companies for partnerships, but most make more money from the subscription model and tips. To maintain this weighting, the platform only accepts creators with 10,000 followers or more (across all social media channels). Fanfix’s commission fee is higher than competitors – 20% compared to 5-12% on Patreon, for example – but creators’ average annual income is already $70,000, according to the service’s founders.
Apart from helping influencers earn via fan engagement alone, the membership platform affords followers more say in the content they’re paying for, via the tipping options and direct messages. This evolution from parasocial to parakin relationships, where fan opinions play a role in ‘co-creating’ content, is part of a power shift in the creator economy that’s already having consequences for brands, as evidenced by the ‘de-influencer’ movement – see Squad Watch in Pop Culture Pulse: February 2023.